"Foxconn has been working with former Android executive Andy Rubin since last year to carry out the US company’s vision for robotics," the report said. "To speed up robot deployment at its own factories, Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou met with Rubin in Taipei recently and they discussed new robotic technologies, [sources] said. At the meeting, Gou expressed excitement over new automation technologies demonstrated by Rubin, they said."

Foxconn, which assembles iPhones and iPads and many other consumer products, including Android devices, wants to increase the use of automation "at its factories amid challenges of rising labor costs and workplace disputes in China, where it hasmore than a million workers," the Journal noted. Poor working conditions for Foxconn employees has drawn condemnation, and in one case may have caused a riot that temporarily closed a factory.

Google's robotics development is not believed to be initially directed at building consumer products. "At least for now, Google’s robotics effort is not something aimed at consumers. Instead, the company’s expected targets are in manufacturing—like electronics assembly, which is now largely manual—and competing with companies like Amazon in retailing," the New York Times reported in December.

Foxconn's ambition to populate its factories with robots that can assemble electronics projects make the company an ideal testing ground for Google's robotics tech, analysts told the Journal.

In response to a query from Ars, Google said, "we won't comment on rumors."

Next thing you know it, they'll announce the construction o f a large 5 star orbiting space colony for billionaires, staffed by robots built in the ghetto factories of a vast crime-ridden hellhole formerly known as Los Angeles.

I can't handle this much. I understand it's progress... but this has no benefit for anyone, only for shareholders.Your device will cost you the same. Shareholders get richer. Less people share the result of the work. More unemployment.

A nation that'll have a billion+ unemployment problem. Wars have been started on less.

Wild unemployment is already a problem. It is the reason that people line up to work in what we would call labor camps in the US. A vast majority of Chinese are desperately poor. Sure, $20 a week sounds like a pittance to Westerners, but when your alternative is farming in which you work 20 hour days, 7 days a week and barely grow enough food to feed your family on the land you don't even own, 16 hour work days and a day off is a significantly better life.

Why do Chinese line up at new new Foxconn factory openings? Because these "abusive" factory positions are still a great step up for many Chinese.

While I disagree that this will put ALL Chinese laborers out of work, it will certainly have an interesting effect on the Chinese labor market.

Why do Chinese line up at new new Foxconn factory openings? Because these "abusive" factory positions are still a great step up for many Chinese.

But it's not a step up for those that get killed due to unsafe conditions. Look at the Bangladeshi factory collapse that killed something like 3000 workers.

I do not dispute that these factories are a tremendous opportunity for the very worst off, I just take issue with every single country apparently needing to relearn the lessons we learned in the Industrial Revolution.

Why do Chinese line up at new new Foxconn factory openings? Because these "abusive" factory positions are still a great step up for many Chinese.

But it's not a step up for those that get killed due to unsafe conditions. Look at the Bangladeshi factory collapse that killed something like 3000 workers.

I do not dispute that these factories are a tremendous opportunity for the very worst off, I just take issue with every single country apparently needing to relearn the lessons we learned in the Industrial Revolution.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. Unfortunately, probably the most effective way to decrease the quantity of these jobs, thereby disincentivizing the types of operations that put money first and people last, is to decrease goods purchased from China. Good luck figuring that one out.

I can't handle this much. I understand it's progress... but this has no benefit for anyone, only for shareholders.Your device will cost you the same. Shareholders get richer. Less people share the result of the work. More unemployment.

Yeay.

Luddites also protested the development of mechanical advancements that directly evolved into the very computer you are using to comment on, right now.

Why do Chinese line up at new new Foxconn factory openings? Because these "abusive" factory positions are still a great step up for many Chinese.

But it's not a step up for those that get killed due to unsafe conditions. Look at the Bangladeshi factory collapse that killed something like 3000 workers.

I do not dispute that these factories are a tremendous opportunity for the very worst off, I just take issue with every single country apparently needing to relearn the lessons we learned in the Industrial Revolution.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. Unfortunately, probably the most effective way to decrease the quantity of these jobs, thereby disincentivizing the types of operations that put money first and people last, is to decrease goods purchased from China. Good luck figuring that one out.

Interestingly enough, we're pretty far along on the race to the bottom. There aren't a lot of countries that haven't seen their very worst-off move to factory work. And since that does raise the quality of life for the country as a whole, we're seeing that process happen almost organically. Skilled factory workers suddenly are in demand for other factories built in the country, and their pay goes up.

The single-biggest risk for just-now industrializing nations is automation. If cheap, effective automation comes to bear quickly enough, many nations that haven't quite become self-sustaining with their own industrial output/demand could completely regress to a per-industiral state, as the rest of the world no longer needs their goods, or their labor.

Why do Chinese line up at new new Foxconn factory openings? Because these "abusive" factory positions are still a great step up for many Chinese.

But it's not a step up for those that get killed due to unsafe conditions. Look at the Bangladeshi factory collapse that killed something like 3000 workers.

I do not dispute that these factories are a tremendous opportunity for the very worst off, I just take issue with every single country apparently needing to relearn the lessons we learned in the Industrial Revolution.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. Unfortunately, probably the most effective way to decrease the quantity of these jobs, thereby disincentivizing the types of operations that put money first and people last, is to decrease goods purchased from China. Good luck figuring that one out.

Hahaha! You seriously think decreasing goods purchased from China is going to disincentivize putting money first and people last?

Robot assembly lines will accomplish both, as well as drive down the cost of manufacturing where something like an iPhone will cost $50.

Imagine coupling robot assembly lines with 3D printers and CAD/CAM machines, as well as simulators and simulations.

A new smartphone can be designed, manufactured, and delivered within a week, and iteratively improved quarter by quarter.

A computer (smartphone, tablet, laptop, desktop, whatever) will cost as much as a dress, today, or about $100, and be better than anything you can buy for $200, today.

I can't handle this much. I understand it's progress... but this has no benefit for anyone, only for shareholders.Your device will cost you the same. Shareholders get richer. Less people share the result of the work. More unemployment.

Yeay.

No benefit for anyone? This could be the beginning of the end for degrading, menial labor. This is key element of basically any sci-fi utopia, and people like you are scoffing like it's a plague.

This is extremely foolish, and it's an impulse that you're good to recognize but also need to actively fight. Simple opposition to efficiency advancements and more powerful tools will not work, as there will be big rewards for anyone who chooses not to go along. Furthermore, it's short sighted. The problem isn't the tools, it's in shaping the future use of the tools towards the goals of humanity in general. We're going to have to rethink our societies and the basic economics and tradeoffs that underly them. The concept of "work" and how important/necessary it is will likely have to change, but that's both more achievable and a more positive outcome then trying to hold back the tide and artificially hang on to more inefficient systems just for the sake of it.

I can't handle this much. I understand it's progress... but this has no benefit for anyone, only for shareholders.Your device will cost you the same. Shareholders get richer. Less people share the result of the work. More unemployment.

Yeay.

No benefit for anyone? This could be the beginning of the end for degrading, menial labor. This is key element of basically any sci-fi utopia, and people like you are scoffing like it's a plague.

Well, there's s big thing those sci-fi utopias often overlook: all the people at the very bottom of the socioeconomic latter that now have no way to advance, now that all of the rungs used to advance a society technologically and socially have been automated away.

I can't handle this much. I understand it's progress... but this has no benefit for anyone, only for shareholders.Your device will cost you the same. Shareholders get richer. Less people share the result of the work. More unemployment.

Yeay.

No benefit for anyone? This could be the beginning of the end for degrading, menial labor. This is key element of basically any sci-fi utopia, and people like you are scoffing like it's a plague.

Because the people who do "degrading, menial labor" have the skill capacity and/or resources to work in higher end jobs.

Their poor economic position might not be their fault, but if you take away their jobs, how are they going to provide food and shelter for themselves, let alone their children if they have any?

Poor work conditions and pay are certainly not the solution to those who just don't have the necessary tools to be a white-collar worker, but on the same token, simply ousting all these blue-collar workers and saying "we have robots now, go find a different job" with no middle ground isn't any better.

I can't handle this much. I understand it's progress... but this has no benefit for anyone, only for shareholders.Your device will cost you the same. Shareholders get richer. Less people share the result of the work. More unemployment.

Yeay.

No benefit for anyone? This could be the beginning of the end for degrading, menial labor. This is key element of basically any sci-fi utopia, and people like you are scoffing like it's a plague.

Well, there's s big thing those sci-fi utopias often overlook: all the people at the very bottom of the socioeconomic latter that now have no way to advance, now that all of the rungs used to advance a society technologically and socially have been automated away.

This. Very much this. There's a reason why sci-fi is called sci-fi. There's also a reason why nearly every utopian community failed.

I can't handle this much. I understand it's progress... but this has no benefit for anyone, only for shareholders.Your device will cost you the same. Shareholders get richer. Less people share the result of the work. More unemployment.

Yeay.

No benefit for anyone? This could be the beginning of the end for degrading, menial labor. This is key element of basically any sci-fi utopia, and people like you are scoffing like it's a plague.

Well, there's s big thing those sci-fi utopias often overlook: all the people at the very bottom of the socioeconomic latter that now have no way to advance, now that all of the rungs used to advance a society technologically and socially have been automated away.

You think the only way for a society to advance is by walking through the previously trod steps? So do you think China needs to go through an agriculturally driven slave-labor based phase before it can develop into a service based economy? Or maybe it can skip the slave-part, since we now have automated/mechanical processes to do a lot of the manual labor?

I mean, heck, in California we still do the manual labor in agriculture part. Are you arguing this is important and vital for the development of Mexico, as a country, so it can become a stronger country?